They Sold A Million Posters: The Two Most Lusted-After 1980s Italian Supercars Meet Again

Editor's Note: In honor of this weekend's annual Pebble Beach festivities and the annual Concorso Italiano event, we've published the 1993 Ferrari 512 Testarossa and 1988 Lamborghini Countach 5000QV story that originally appeared in the Spring 2012 issue of Motor Trend Classic. Enjoy!

My mother claims I was conceived the night Richard Nixon resigned the presidency. True or not, I was born in May 1975, and that means I grew up in the 1980s, the decade when the Baby Boomers put down their bongs, unzipped their bellbottoms one last time, and embraced the sunny optimism that was Reaganomics. Jerry Rubin became a stockbroker and Abbie Hoffman killed himself. Greed, to paraphrase the philosopher and patron saint of that particular age, was good. As a fairly sheltered suburban kid, all I really knew of the Me Decade was that there were some awesome posters down at the mall. Cindy Crawford, or better yet, Kathy Ireland! The girls were great (Christie Brinkley!) as were the rock stars (I still miss my Beastie Boys/Run DMC Together Forever Tour poster). But what I really cared about had four wheels and went vroom. Porsches and Corvettes, Camaros and Mustangs, Jags and Astons. Cobras too, of course, and even a Bugatti. But the two posters that most stick out in my mind were of a red Ferrari Testarossa and a black Lamborghini Countach, the two most definitive supercars of the 1980s. Both could exist only in a time of anomie: an exotic Wild West where white-collar criminals were not only insouciant, but winked at and idolized. After all, Sonny Crockett drove a white Testarossa while impersonating a drug-dealing Miami gangster.Years ago, I happened to be stuck in rush-hour Beverly Hills traffic in a Lamborghini Gallardo LP550-2 Valentino Balboni being driven around by none other than Lambo's legendary test driver, Valentino Balboni. I was supposed to be interviewing him about the rear-drive Gallardo that bears his name, but the interview, like our drive, was going nowhere. So I changed course and said, "Tell me about the first time you saw the Countach." He turned to me, his eyes suddenly glowing. "Ah, the Countach! Impossible! Nobody believed it was a car." And if you can envision rural Bologna 40 years ago, you know the wedge-shaped Lambo came off like an absolute spaceship. The rest of our time together was spent discussing the Countach and the Miura, with Balboni concluding that cars like those couldn't exist in today's world. When I asked him why, he made the sign of the cross and said that was the standard braking procedure. Also that people care about the planet these days. My takeaway was that, all these years later, the Countach is still an object of wonderment to a man who was around them for their entire 16-year production run.

Penned by a then very young Marcello Gandini, the brilliant designer behind the aforementioned, breathtaking Miura and the tidy, aggressive Lancia Stratos, and first introduced to the world at the 1971 Geneva motor show, the Countach still pushes the boundaries of perception after decades. Can it be real? Can this car actually exist? The name, the very word "Countach," is a rather vulgar Piedmontese expression of amazement when a man sees a particularly attractive woman. Roughly translated, it means, "What a piece of ass!" Only bluer. Hot rumor has it that the exclamation of "countach!" came from none other than bossman Nuccio Bertone when he first laid eyes on Gandini's Project 112 in the Bertone design studio. You will note that, unlike other Lamborghini products named after bulls or bullfighters, the Countach fittingly draws it moniker from sexualized swearing.

This particular car's owner, David Houston, likes to start his day by working out in front of the red Lamborghini. "I find a way to look at the Countach at least twice a day." Wouldn't you? I'll even argue that Lamborghini exists today only because people loved the Countach -- and specifically the Countach -- so very much. What else could explain four changes of ownership across three continents and Lambo's still standing? Certainly not the Jalpa. No, the reason Lamborghini exists today is because every single one of us remembers that weak-in-the-knees moment, that gasping of our own vernacular vulgarity, when we first laid eyes on the Italian exotic. How could the company behind such a car die? It can't, which is why in 1998 Ferdinand Porsche's grandson purchased the ailing automaker from President Suharto's youngest son, Tommy, for roughly $10 million. No matter what, some things are worth saving.Standing in front of this 1988 iteration, I can assure you the magic's still there. The lines are just staggering. Every angle, every surface every crease is but one more piece of eye candy. Every time you look at the car, you discover something new to delight you. Even the mighty wing looks fabulous. There's lots of chatter among car cognoscenti about which Countach is the best. There's universal agreement that the worst is the Horacio Pagani-designed 25th Anniversary Countach, which featured ungainly and unnecessary strakes over almost every surface. Your typical automotive know-it-all will argue that the best Countach is actually the first-generation LP400, the wingless, strakeless, skinny-tires version that launched in 1974. I've been guilty of saying such a thing myself. But spending the day in and out of this red 5000QV (aka Quattrovalvole) with its gold phone-dial wheels and giant 335x15 Pirelli P7 tires convinces me that my 12-year-old self was right. All the scoopage and stretched body work that was required to shroud those meaty tires makes this is the greatest Countach of them all, bar none, end of story, check please, taxi. Further proof from owner Houston: "The 11-year-old boy down the street from me thinks it's the greatest car in the world, and I think he's right."

In the 80's Miami Vice and a poster store called "Print Plus" made me fall in love with the Testarossa.Miami Vice, Sonny Crokett, and a Rossa. Even though the show car was fake, my hard on for the Ferrari was not.

The Countach is just spectacular. I actually prefer the 25th Anniversary Edition (the more ridiculous a V12 Lamborghini looks, the better it is), but all of them are amazing to look at and hear. Not so much to drive, of course, but what do you expect?The Ferrari Testarossa, on the other hand, is the complete opposite of the Countach; ugly, yet more fun to drive. I just can't get over those side strakes, though. I was glad when Ferrari replaced it with the much better 550 Maranello.

I got to see and start (mass quantities of alcohol had been consumed, so driving it was out of the question) an original 1975 Countach in Gibraltar in the '80's. One of the sweetest sounding mills I've ever heard in one of the sweetest looking cars I've ever seen and it provided confirmation why I'm a gearhead !! I'm not as big a fan of the later cars since the wings and flares look tacked on and take away from the gorgeous basic design but if there was only one exotic car I could own it would be a Countach (of ANY year)!!

it was 1985. I was 12 year old about I watched many movies for kids got Ferrari or Lamborghini Countach. it was cool design . it was lot of fun. I love a classic Lamborghini Countach than currently Lamborghini Avenador.

Why do you have to inject your political beliefs in an article on cars Jonny Lieberman?The 80's were not a decade of greed. It was a decade of renewed prosperity after years of decline. But those with an axe to grind will tell a lie over and over until it becomes fact.Durin S Day